Provo City Center Temple

We had an awesome morning today! We had tickets to attend the new Provo City Center Temple open house this morning. It was so good! The building was formerly the Provo Tabernacle. When Nate and I lived in Provo, we would attend stake conference in that building. It burned down in 2010 and has since been rebuilt into a gorgeous temple. It was so great to see the history of the building honored and the care that they took in rebuilding. Nate and I were married and sealed in the Mt. Timpanogos Temple and it has always been my favorite. It was neat to see the contrast between the interior of the Mt. Timp temple and this new temple. The Provo City Center Temple has the great almost Victorian feel with lots of rich woodwork and stained glass. I know this might sound weird, but I even like the cool sage green and gold patterned carpet. It's much smaller than what I'm used to, but extremely well done. I'm so glad we got the opportunity to go. It was just what we needed this morning. We didn't take many pictures because by the time our tour ended it was snowing so hard! We were totally covered in snow by the time we walked back to the car! I can't wait to go back!


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Jazz Game

Last night Nate and his dad went to the Jazz and Timberwolves game in Salt Lake. Nate's dad has had tickets to multiple Jazz games this season and has taken all of Nate's siblings. Nate and his dad have been trying to schedule a night to go together since November. They finally were able to find room in both their schedules to make it together. Nate said he had a nice time and that the game was good. Nate has eight siblings so it's not often that he gets one-on-one time with his dad. I'm glad they got to have an evening together, quality time is the best.


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Merry Christmas!

We had such a nice Christmas. We spent Christmas Eve dinner with my mom and little sister, and had a nice ham dinner. Then we swung by Nate's parents' house and visited with them for a little bit. That evening we snuggled and watched a Christmas show before falling asleep. Nate set his alarm for 5 am, like usual he can't wait to open presents on Christmas morning, he's like a kid at Christmastime. As is our tradition, Nate and I spend Christmas morning just the two of us. Nate read us the story of Christ's birth from the scriptures and then we went downstairs to open gifts. We both were totally spoiled. Nate went to take out the garbage and we were shocked to see that there about a foot of snow on our back steps. Nate and I went to his parents' for lunch at 1 pm and it was nice to have his whole family there. That evening we stopped by my mom's place and played some games with my mom and sister. A busy day, but a nice day. We were tired when we got home, but we both commented on how much we love Christmas and love having so much time together at this holiday season. Christmas is always a little hard for us. It such a family oriented season, and it's hard to not have children this time of year. But Nate does a great job of making me feel loved and I'm so grateful to share my Christmas with him.

Christmas morning.



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Christmas Prep

My favorite holiday is coming soon! I love all things Christmas. My goal is to have all my Christmas decorations and tree up by December 1st each year. Then I get to relax and enjoy them all month long. So this last Monday for family night, Nate and I got to work decorating. We got a new tree this year and I love how big and full and grand it is. The only part of decorating I don't like is fluffing/straightening out the tree branches, but it's so worth it in the end. I've been enjoying the last five days of having the tree on all day. It's so soothing and peaceful to have it on. Tonight for our date night activity we kept our tradition alive and purchased our ornaments and Christmas book for the year. My ornament is called moonlit sleigh ride and Nate's is a really cool three wise men one. Nate picked out our Christmas book this year, it's by the same author that wrote "Brown Bear, Brown Bear." I love having the house all decorated, and with the exception of one person, our Christmas shopping is complete. Now we get to enjoy the rest of the month and celebrate the reason for the season!

Cute Nate getting the tree put together.

Our completed tree, I need to take a better picture.

My new ornament. I love that it sits on a bulb and gets illuminated in the back.

Nate's new ornament for 2015.

Our new Christmas book. We always had lots of Christmas books growing up, so it's been fun to carry on that tradition.

We're hoping to adopt, check our profile out at http://adoption.com/profiles/nksmithfamily-1800 and feel free to pass it along!

Thanksgiving Re-Cap

This year was our year to spend Thanksgiving with Nate's family. We all spent the holiday week up in Park City. I think there was a total of 24 of us gathered together. Unfortunately not everyone was able to stay the whole week, but we had a blast still. Each married couple was in charge of a dinner one night for everyone and an activity. Nate and I made meatball sliders and salad for our dinner and I made a Thanksgiving themed bingo game for our activity. We used skittles as our bingo markers and that definitely was the highlight of the game for the nieces and nephews! Other activities included Bunco, making homemade turtles, minute to win it games, and there were multiple trips to the hot tubs and pool. Nate and I usually hit up the outlets when we go to Park City, but we didn't make it there this trip. For our Thanksgiving meal we divided the labor. Everyone was in charge of a dessert to share and a certain dish. Nate and I made the stuffing, a green bean casserole, and a salted caramel chocolate crusted cheesecake. I have to admit, I really enjoy cooking with Nate. We have a lot of fun in the kitchen and I love watching his cooking skills grow. He'll tell you he's not very good in the kitchen, but that's simply not true. It was a really nice holiday and both Nate and I had a great time with his family. A big thanks to Ben and Katie for making our Park City trip possible! We came home on Black Friday and spent some time with my mom and sister Kelley. No Black Friday shopping for us, it's too crazy. We did get a few cyber Monday deals though. Once we came home, it took me a few days to adjust. It was so quiet at our house compared to Park City! I missed having breakfast with the nieces and nephews and having them come in and jump on my bed. Nate and I agreed, we need some kids to liven up our house, especially around the holidays! All in all, Thanksgiving was so fun and I loved having so much time together with Nate.

One of Nate's many trips swimming.

This is just after playing our minute to win it games where Nate totally cheated!

Nate posing with our green bean casserole on Thanksgiving. Does it still count as a vegetable dish if you add cheese and bacon to it?

My plate, yes, I am a picky eater. No gross stuffing or sweet potatoes for me.

A slice of the cheesecake I made. Nate definitely wants it made again. It's a really time consuming dessert so I told him I can only make it on special occasions.

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Happy Birthday Nate!

Today is the day, happy birthday Nate! I'm so so grateful that you're a part of my life, and I'm honored to be a part of yours. I hope today is fabulous and I hope you know how much you are loved!



We're hoping to adopt, check our profile out at http://adoption.com/profiles/nksmithfamily-1800 and feel free to pass it along!

Halloween 2015

I really like that Halloween fell on a Saturday this year. We carved our pumpkins the night before Halloween so they'd still hold up well and look good for the 31st. It was also fun to have pretty much the whole day with Nate. Nate played his usual basketball games in the morning while I got ready for the day, then we ran some errands and that afternoon we went to hang out with Nate's family. In addition to our pumpkin carving tradition, Nate and I also like to get big candy bars for our nieces and nephews each year. Most of them request chocolate, but we did have a request for some sour gummy worms this year, and a couple suckers. We can't help it, we love being the favorite aunt and uncle :). And they're just so cute in their little costumes. Since I'm not a fan of scary movies, we found a haunted gingerbread house kit at the grocery store and decided to bring it with us to Nate's parents' house. That way I'd have something to do if everyone else was in a movie kind of a mood. It turned out to be a huge mess, and a huge hit. Everyone got in on the action, and Nate even convinced his sister to take a bite of the finished product. I'm glad I took pictures during the process because our poor little house only stood for a short little while. Oh well, we still had fun.




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Pumpkin Carving 2015

So each year Nate and I carve coordinating pumpkins. It's our big Halloween tradition. This year Nate was in charge of choosing the theme, and he chose super heroes. He found a wonder woman stencil for me and he chose a batman/superman combo stencil for himself. This year was extra fun, my mom and little sister Kelley joined us. Kelley did not follow suit however, and she went off book and carved a sun instead of something super hero related. I think her pumpkin turned out pretty cute, we collaborated on how to get the center circle to "float" in the middle - we used toothpicks. In my opinion the pumpkins were a hit again this year. We always have such a blast and it's always nice to do something creative. Can't wait to see what we carve next year!





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Welcome Home Elder Smith

One of Nate's cute younger brothers just returned home from serving a two year LDS mission this past week. Welcome home Aaron, we are thrilled to have you home! Aaron spent two years in Arizona teaching the gospel and serving people. He did a great job and we are so proud of him. It'll be so fun having him back around and he's just in time for the wedding of another of Nate's brothers this coming weekend. Lots of stuff going on with the extended family.

Fresh off the plane!

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General Conference Waffles

Once every six months (every April and October) our church has a big two day broadcast called General Conference. During these two days leaders from our church present talks they've prepared. The topics may vary, but all the talks are uplifting and encouraging. You can learn more about our beliefs and church at mormon.org.
Anyway, Nate and I try to make each General Conference a really fun and special weekend. One of the things we do is make a nice breakfast. This time around we made waffles. Nate found out that a local food truck called Waffle Love was selling their liege waffle dough to be made at home. He jumped on the chance and ordered some. We had my mom over for breakfast and the waffle party was a hit! I ate my waffle plain (I'm not a big fan of syrup), my mom had cool whip, and Nate had biscoff cookie spread, nutella, syrup, and cool whip. The waffles were so fun and definitely yummy!

Here's the dough after rising, ready to be cooked. You can even see the sugar crystals.

Freshly cooked!

Nate's waffle.

Handsome Nate.

We're hoping to adopt, check our profile out at http://adoption.com/profiles/nksmithfamily-1800 and feel free to pass it along!